Boy back home after copperhead bites him

WOLFE COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT) - A Wolfe County boy is home recovering from a snake bite. On Friday, a copperhead bit 10-year-old Shane Blackburn while he was hiking with a church group in the Red River Gorge. Blackburn is still suffering from the effects of the venom in his body.

"I was checking out a rock cave, and I couldn't see the snake at all," explained Blackburn, "it just striked me in the leg, and it hurt like a needle."

Fellow hikers from Blackburn's church group spotted the snake, even managed to get a picture of it. They say it was a copperhead. If bites from copperheads aren't treated fast, doctors say victims could suffer serious tissue damage, or joint and muscle damage.

"It's painful and hurts," he notes.

Mom Sarah Blackburn is a certified nursing assistant.

"I deal with patients every day, but when it's your own kid it's completely different," she said, "when I found out it was a copperhead I kind of panicked a little bit."

She wasn't with her son at the time, but rushed to the hospital as soon as she found out.

"I had all kinds of stuff running through my mind. It was just horrible, it was terrifying, I was shaking all over by the time I got to him."

Blackburn is back home recovering. He has to walk with crutches until his foot heals.

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